So you want to have a contest eh?

Day 2,347, 22:11 Published in Canada Spain by Doggstar

I'm sure I wasn't the only one excited by the prospects of a good old fashioned contest, complete with energy rewards. We all remember the Snowman contest which featured near endless amounts of tanking. Weapons we're about as scarce as unicorn shit and anyone could be a big shot for a week.

Well you can imagine my anticipation this week. I'd stocked up on weapons. I'd amassed a nice little stash of ebars. I was guaranteed to hit Titan*. Hell I was ready to become the local chartbuster and it was going to be great. But a funny thing happened on the way to the party... some guy in a toga knee capped me and stole my god damned wallet.

At the time this article was written there are precisely 3 eCanadians who have completed the mission. There will certainly be a 4th (me). Chances are I will shove the poisoned carrot where the sun doesn't shine sometime on Saturday. I have my doubts we will see a 5th eCanadian complete this mission. Not necessarily a good thing.

Now here's where I'm going to go ahead and put my Monday morning quarterback jersey on. If you're going to make a contest, perhaps make it achievable for even a statistically relevant portion of the population. Your rewards system this week has more bombs than an Iraqi wedding party and is virtually devoid of energy bars. This serves only as a distraction. When the "1%" are doing 300 million damage per battle, a couple of fire crackers are about as useful as sunglasses in a blackout.

What could have been done differently? Perhaps a tiered reward system? Perhaps the ability to get energy without writing a cheque? I'm a fairly wealthy player and I am able to generate a decent flow of gold with BH, CH, SS, AEIOU medals and I'm having a hell of a time. Further, I'm far from the norm and far from the average. Simply put, it would have been easier to skip the contest and give every elite citizen the ability to buy a rabbit medal for a couple hundred gold. Instead we get a spotlight on how there is no real middle class in eRepublik. We get to have what should be a fun week turn into a frustrating week. 13,000 prestige points gets me 25 energy bars? Sweetheart, I was top damage in the country last week and I didn't get there.

Imagine a pendulum swinging. The snowman contest was on the extreme of easy. This contest was on the extreme of hard. Lets try to find some middle ground next time shall we? Let's make it so you don't have to be a morbidly obese tank with a fully stocked pantry to get the job done. After all, it's about making the population feel good isn't it? Instead I think we're mainly feeling like battered spouses.